Ridiculous CrimeHe said “no” to Oprah, but he said “yes” to Ridiculous Crime. In a rare twist, Zaron surprises Elizabeth with his own mash-up — an interview with actual international jewel thief, Gerald Blanchard, the star of a new documentary. Meet the folk hero outlaw, the criminal mastermind who later earned the nickname the “James Bond of Crime.”
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
E Elizabeth Dutton, Mcgirls, Aaron Burnett. I got a question for you. Have been burning as uh huh. You know it's ridiculous.
I do?
Do you I do? We're just making that face.
I'm one hundred percent serious. It's ridiculously cool. Oh really yeah, our listeners, Yeah, totally sure. So I have two things for you today, listener mail. The first is from Summer that says, Hi both. I'm a new listener from London, England. I'm absolutely loving listening to the show. I'm currently listening to The Ocean's ten the Baker Street robbery episode, and have more information for you on the emergency circumcision ambulance mentioned.
At the beginning, Oh thank you, Sommer.
It was owned by a man called from Josevic, who is a Hackney based private circumcisions surgeon. I say that eighty five times. Who does home visits?
He's not a moil, He's not to somebody who does the circumcisions culturally, Well, no he does.
Yeah, I suppose he's an and Hackneys in East London. The Audi TT was a private ambulance, so not part of our national health service, so you can't call nine nine nine our version of nine to one one to get a call out. I believe, but can't confirm that it services the Shamrim Jews. I'm maybe not saying that right Jewish community in London, but don't quote me on that. I'll attach the relevant links below. Anyway, I'm loving the show, can't wait to hear more. Summer.
Nice, Thank you.
I came through with the intel on that, so that was ridiculously cool to get an update, a ridiculously cool update. And then we heard from Jeremy through Instagram and he said, hey, y'all, not sure if you guys already talked about this monstrosity on the podcast intro, but if you haven't enjoyed this food crime, they were first come, first serve, is what he's saying.
Oh was this a mashup? Did you sneak a mashup? Hask me? He gave me all like, oh, listener, Summer's got this cool bit of fun fact. And then all was by the way, if somebody decided they made an edible bagel that you can wear as a shoe.
Close. So it says they were first come, first serve on their Sauccles website late last year, and each box got two tongue torchin and two zax sauce flavors. And I was quote lucky enough to get a box of them. And yes, they were just as horrendous tasting as they look.
What is sauccles. I don't even know.
So Zaxby's.
Oh yeah, the chicken price in the fast.
Food place, which is, if I think, is a fancy fast food place. Where I lived in the deep rural South, you had to drive like an hour to get to fancy Zaxby's.
High class.
We have Bojangles. So they had saucicles which were popsicles that were sauce flavored. Oh god, So it says Zaxby's sauce is going where no sauce is gone before freezer. Well they're saying that they've gone where no sauce is gone before the freezer. Guess what people freeze sauce? Zaxby. I don't know. I don't know how people live. And it says why because we figured if you'll lick every last drop of that legendary sauce off your fingers, you'll probably lick every last drip of sauce off a popsicle. So what are you waiting for? Get them? Will they're cold?
I question your reasoning about what I will do, sir.
Two flavors, yes, tongue torch, a mild garlicly peppery heat, just cold. In other words, spice spice baby is what it says. And then it also says ice cream. Use This is for Zack's sauce, which I suppose is they're like house sauce, You know, sauce Somalie draws up ice cream, you scream, We all scream for this creamy blend of zesty spices.
Can I be left out of this? Can I be left out of the WII? Say?
The sauce sauccle freezer is empty, so they're not available anymore?
Oh darn.
And apparently they were shipping them places, but it says here they couldn't ship them to California.
So is this like the Fall of Rome is the weirdest stuff?
Weird decadent fall of Rome? In this country?
We were making animals extinct because they're just like, yes, I like to eat their tongues.
Okay, well they're taking out the rare wild zaxonies.
I can't chicken with eight breasts a saucicle. I didn't need to know that way, Thanks, Jeremy oh Man, I got I got something for you. You got a second I want to get you back. No, this one's fun. It's a guy from Omaha, Nebraska, and I thought you did. Yeah, his own mother said, quote, he looks like a nerd. Now, this guy, he'd given himself the street name mcguiver, So you know I love him. Yeah, yeah, So he's basically you know. For those who don't know, this story takes place in the mid nineties, and mcgiver was an early eighties poster boy for Ingenuity under Pressure. Right now, this nerdy team from Omaha. He was like, I'm known for my improvisational skills, right, but not to like blow up cartel speedboats with like a hunk of bubblegum and like a double a battery and a paper clip. No, that kind of mcguiver. More like I can go to a gas station and walk out with cartons of cigarettes mcgiver, Right, Okay, whatever you know. Anyway, So this cat, he said, he turns to crime, finds he's good at it. He's so good he earns himself a new nickname. The James Bond of Crime. That's an upgrade, right, totally right, and it goes from TV to movies anyway. Supremely fitting because by then, at this point the dude was allegedly parachuting onto Austrian castles to steal priceless Crown jewels.
Get out.
Not bad for a kid from Omaha, huh huh.
Yeah, this is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers.
Heicce and cons. Yes, it's always nine to nine percent moder free and one ridiculous. Elizabeth saren so glad to have you here, Thank you, because, oh boy, do I have a very special episode of Ridiculous Crime for you.
Am I going to learn a lot By the time it's over, We're all.
Going to be changed. Yeah. So you hear me say this a fair bit a lot. We'll say these are my kind of guys, or like, this is my dude, this chat I love him, right, But in this instance, I'd say all of those are true. This is my kind of guy. Oh really, my dude, I love this cat.
Right.
So meet Gerald Blanchard, International Burglar Extraordinaire. He's also the star in the focus of a new documentary that's about to come out from Hulu called The Jewel Thief. Now, the folks from Hula, they reached out to ridiculous Crime, and they said to me, you don't open the emails. I opened the email, so they sent me an early screen, or they would have sent you on if you opened your email. But anyway, I watched it. I enjoyed it, and I didn't tell you about it. So I'm gonna tell you about it now. So I thought i'd tell you about my dude, Gerald Blanchard. Now I told you up tom dudes from Omaha, Nebraska. That's not exactly true. I've already started lying to you. Oh right, you know, so history begins earlier than that. He was originally from Canada.
Oh, like, is he conceived in Canada?
No? No, he's not that kind of guy.
Is that how far back you're going?
Like he was a glimmer in his parent's eye? But no, he was. He was adopted by two loving parents and then raised in a family and home of wealth and privilege. Right. But then, as so often happens for those featured on this show, there was a schism in his childhood and fracturing of a sense of what is and what could be and what was about to be, because he went from living as a comfortly secure Canadian to being the son of a single mother barely scraping by to care for herself and her young son in America. Oh wow, Yeah, So his parents get divorced, right, that was the schism for Gerald. Parental divorce. This fractured his life into before and after. Right now, after the divorce is newly single mom. She moves across the border, as they said, to Nebraska. She finds work, she tries to raise her adopted son on her own. It's not easy because America, but they make a go of it, right, I don't want you worrying too much. And they had each other. Their love was just you know, holding them as their bond, their bond super strong.
So they had each other, but not health insurance exactly America.
So the bank for closes on their home and this is like a devastating blow to the young boy. This becomes the real final schism that brooked'reilled away from we'll call the path of a normal life. Right at this point, he's like, I despise the banks, you know, He's like one of the depression era of people like maybe he's gonna start shooting at the revenue man, right. So he's like decides that what the banks have done to his mother and to him is a crime, right. And his mother had begged and pleaded and said, I can make a new payment arrangements, please don't take our home, and the bank's like, a lady, this has more value do it to us than to you. She's like, but it's my home, right, And he's like, this is just cruel. So he decides, I'm going to go full nineties on this, right, So he did as many of our folk heroes opted to do. He turns to crime. So he starts with, you know, initially stealing food from stores. Yeah, nothing big.
Very very like you know, limiz of him, very.
Lame, is very limb, is very lea miz in Omaha. So he's going down to like the local like gas and gulp and grabbing like stuff, right, and so this is mostly for him and his mom, and then he goes both moves on to stealing us as I said, cigarettes or whatever for his teenage friend. Now you were there for the early nineties, Elizabeth, I was. Now you remember the bangs that were hair sprayed into gravity defining. Yeah, you remember the Aquinet bathroom era, right walking, they be a cloud. Okay. Now, imagine like two or three of those girls with the acid washed jeans. They're all giggles and like hair sprayed bangs, and there's this skinny teene boy shirtless because you know o mah, and he's outwitting the clerk at work in the night ship.
He's shirtless in the in the.
Gas station, he's getting service. He's no shoes, no shirt, no service.
All around with no shirts more often.
Oh yeah, well into the nineties. You know, people think, oh, it's a seventies and I'm like, no, that really kept going.
It was like, that's up.
What happened nine to eleven. I don't know.
I don't know what towers fell. It was just like the spark out of.
Go shirt list. He can't be showing your nips and that anymore serious people. But in all seriousness, it was working, you know, the local gas and gulp late at night and he's there, shirtless, skinny boy impressing the girls with the bangs, snaking out carts cigarettes right under the eyes of like, you know, this dopey clerk. Now that's not too hard. So he's like, oh, I'm good at this, and he was getting a name. So he's like known as like the guy takes risks, right, and everybody else cigarette dirt bag exactly, all the kids know. He's like he'll be the one man he's steal like a you know, the stereo from radio shack. Yeah, okay, yeah, exactly. High crimes, Elizabeth, high crimes. So I saw, as I told you the documentary about him, so I know a little bit about him, and I know some things like he broke ridiculous crime Commandment number two do not film yourself in the commission of a felony.
Right.
That's the way I know about how these girls looked and everything is that they had cameras in the gas station filming him, and they filmed him like steal the cigarettes and run out to the car and everything. So he was just always doing this. But like I said, this is the early nineties, so this wasn't like a camera phone. They had like a video camera in somebody's hand, you know, like they're filming.
So it wasn't like security cameras his buddies for filming it like an episode of cops.
Yeah, or like reality bites or something. It's like like they're like talking to the camera anyway. So this guy looks like a nerd. He's the one who's gonna grow up to be the James Bond of crime. So how does he do this? Well, okay, so budding antihero Gerald Blanchard, he as I said, starts to make a name for himself. He does actually start stealing from Radio Shack. He starts stealing stereo components, speakers, cameras. He's selling it to these other kids. They got this new thing called a cell phone. The cell phone. It looks like a like a red brick wrapped in plastic with an antenna shoved in. It is huge, right, It's like Radio Shack's cell phone. Now you can call from like the Little League game or whatever. So his peers and Omaha are loving him because he's dealing all the stuff that they would want to buy hot commodities. Now he starts getting living the good life. He's buying new clothes, he's buying himself in the tech toys, fancy watches, expensive labels.
He develops microwaves, cd ron exactly.
So into hotels with free cable, who waterbeds, you know, HBO anyway, So now he's that one guy at the school everybody knows, right, and so eventually this means the cops know about him. So soon enough the fate follows. He gets busted, Swat shows up at his mother's house. They go breaking in, they find all this stolen gear he's got stored in the garage. Age fifteen, Gerald Blanchard is busted for the first time. All right, cocky teen did not see it coming, even if he knew it was a possibility, still a surprise because he's fifteen. Yeah, we were fifteen boys were like, no, it won't happen to me. Happened to him, So well, he gets lucky though, because what happens to him is American racism. Floats his boat right, because he gets to go to court and rather than have his future snatched away from him by some over zealous judge, the judge looks at him and goes, well, was just just a little white boys gotten himself into a little spat of trouble. You know, it is a wayward kid. And he decides, you know, this youthful indiscretion, she could probably best be met by some parole. So he lets him go even though this guy was moving basically moving trucks worth of stolen equipment.
It was that much.
Yes, yes, so still a youthful in discretion, right. So he gets granted parole and the wayward white boy does he fix his errand ways? Elizabeth?
He does not?
He no, Instead, he goes and as Blanchard puts it, he got smarter, better and bigger. Okay, see why I love this guy. So he gets still good at crime. He's able to buy his mother a house.
Oh yes, new.
Home, and won the bank can't take away because he's all paid for. He pays for the whole thing. Why is the house right?
Nice?
And he buries about one hundred grand behind his mom's house for tough times. So at that time, Gerald was sixteen years old.
He bought a home at sixteen after earlier? How does that work? You know?
In terms of he had He told his mom that he worked to deal with his friends, and his friend paid for the house and then his mom's like, okay, details, how.
Did they transfer all this? I have logistical question.
I don't know if it was like, you know, they put it into an escrow account as like and then just wrote, you know, a credit line from there. I don't know how the money was managed, but I know that it was worked through other adults. Interesting, that's the story. That's what I know. Now, Boom, this starts his real crime career. He's buying houses. Now, yeah, exactly. So at this point on he's a career criminal with a heart of gold. And at one point he has this miraculous double escape from police custody as a Gerald tells the story in The Doctor Jewel Thief, and he's like all casual about it. He's like, quote, a friend of mine set his car on fire to collect on the insurance. That's the start of the story, right, so, you know, as one does when you're a middle aged guy or you know, or a made man. You know, this is what that's what you come up with when you just set the car on fire to get the insurance. But because he's a teenage boy and he's in Omahan, they're doing it in the middle of nowhere. They're like, yeah, how much gasoline do we need to set a car on fire? Elizabeth? How much gasoline do you think you would need? I don't know them gallons and I'll give you just you know, numbers.
I don't know two gallons of guess.
They used ten ten gallons of gas. Ten gallons was too much, that was overkill.
That's like two of those like tanks you fill up for your lawnmower.
Yeah, those small ones usually music too. The bigger ones like for like cars and trucks, and they do five the bigger, bigger red one. Yeah, I know, two of those those red pour it all over a car and then throw the match. Now they have a fire bomb, right, the fire bomb goes off, boom, but just to get it going, they get the fire started. No gas tank yet, fire enough, the big black smoke oes. Cops see this on the horizon, like what's going on over the hill. So they go and they go and to check, well, I.
Wonder how much gas was in the car?
Good question? Thank you, Thank you so much, like that you bring your a game to thank you. So the boys hide out when they see the cops come up. And then Gerald's like, you know what, I'm tired of hide now. So he's like he tells his buddy, who's like a little bit less brave. We'll say, He's like, uh, you wait here, And I said I'm waiting here. So he's like, I'm gonna go talk to the cops. He walks out in the middle of nowhere and the cops are like, what are you doing there. He's like, well, there's a car on fire, so I thought i'd come over here and see what's going on. The cops like uh.
Huh so and he reeks of gasoline.
Oh yeah, that's the other thing. So he's like, oh the afternoon officers, what's up with the car fire. They're like, sir, you smell like gasoline. Oh no, he did, yeah, absolutely reeked up it right. And they also recognize him because I said, the kids all have been talking about him. He is that guy in a small town. So they're like, it's you. So then he gets busted. So while he's talking to the cops, the car explodes.
Come home.
Now. They're like, sorry, we're taking you in. They arrest them. They cough, and they're like, you know what, you're coming with us. So they take him into the cops shop and then Gerald's word, they make the mistake of disrespecting him.
That's a mistake.
Yes, So this sixteen year old is gonna make these police officers learned that you don't disrespect him. Let's take a little break, and I'll tell you how it goes when he gets his vengeance against these local cops for trying to disrespect him for pulling a you know, an insurance shop when he shouldn't have.
All right, Elizabeth, Okay, we're back and now, okay, I'm excited.
Okay. So we had the car be a fire bomb by the teenage boys. The cops have arrested one. They've taken Gerald back to the cop shop, and as Gerald said in the documentary The Jewel of Faith, they said he said, quote, they brought me into the police station. The police officer totally disrespected me. And I knew I was smarter than him. I knew I was better than him. Yeah, little cocky kid, right, So he gets to work on getting his revenge. So keep in mind, he's in police custody, he's in the cop shop. His buddy who you know whose car they blew up, That guy is still on the loose. He's out there. So he has a police scanner radio because they've been at this little while. So they roll around with the police scanner radio and he's listening for a word on Gerald, right, and then he hears something while Gerald was in the interrogation room. Apparently not handcuffed, Gerald climbed up on the table. He opened up the ceiling tiles, pulled himself up into the space for the air ducts, and then he slid the ceiling tiles closed and then starts crawling around the police station's ventilation system.
Are you kidding?
Oh my god, Yes, it's amazing. The cops walk back into the terry gation's room. He's gone, right. They're like, the kid's gone, What the heck? Right, They're like aliens magic, right, and.
They're wondering why in the rest of the building the tiles move every now and then in dust comes from the scene.
Remember though, skinny kids, I think he can manage on those like aluminum braces. He's not moving the tiles.
Yeah, he's wow, exactly, that kid's got stones.
So he stays up there. Cops are flabbergasted, and they put out word over the radio. Gerald Blanchard has escaped from police custody. His buddy, his friend's listening to this. He's like, oh yeah. He drives out of the cop shop to see if Gerald needs his help.
Oh my god.
Yeah. So the police in the station, they were looking for this Houdini kid. They're looking every looking underdsk they're looking in cars, they can't find them. Gerald is gone, gone, right, So the cops are full panic at this point. What are we gonna do? What we call his mom? What do we do? So meanwhile, the teenage boy is watching all of this through the events, just amuse tickled. His friend gets brought in. He watches his friend get interrogated, and then his friend's like, yeah man, They're like, what are you doing here? And he's like, I came to see if Gerald needed help getting away. Oh Chro's like yeah, that's my dog, right. He's loving all this right, So the cops are like, okay, you're free to go, buddy, and his friendly's right. So Gerald watching all this waits till one am. The cops decide, well, guess we can't find him. Turn off the lights. They lock up the station.
They wait kidding, Oh my god, I think it's more like.
The detective's room. I don't think the entire police station. But they lock up for us. Yeah, so that's it. No, they call it right. So then he drops down out of the ceiling tiles. He goes over to the detective who disrespected him, and he goes over to his desk. I couldn't think guy's not asleep at his desk. He goes over to his desk, right, and then he quote takes the cops gun, his badge, his walkie talkie, the pictures of his wife and it's kids off of his desk, his rolodex file, and I took a bullet out of his gun, put a happy face on it and stuck it right on the middle of the desk.
Oh my god, Like the what is in this this child? But also why does the cop leave his gun unsecured in his desk?
I guess this is I mean, basically the response the nineties Omaha Nebraskat hadn't gotten full militarized yet once again, even so, they don't have all the tanks and everything they've gotten fully militarized, so I think they're like down home cops there. Like I locked my desk drawer. Oh I forgot to lock my desk drawer. Whatever, the door is locked at the detective's office. I don't know. I have no idea. It surprised me. I'm surprised he didn't get cup in the interrogation room.
Well, yeah, there's you know what I mean.
There's so many things. I'm like, Wow, things are casual and Omaha anyway. So, as Gerald puts it, everyone should be respected no matter what. But when someone disrespects you, you have a problem, or at least I have a problem, and I will make you pay for it. Oh yike, man Diddy. Because Gerald's not done, Gerald bundles all this stuff into a police uffle bag and he bounces. So he leaves the dude's gun, his badge, pictures of his wife. Now he's in a chess match with the Omaha police, so he's trying to help think him. He's okay, what did they think that I would go? What's a safe place that they wouldn't think that I would think that he's doing all this Inteed decides I'm gonna go home because he's a teenage boss. They wouldn't think that I would be dumb enough to go there. And also he just really wanted to sleep, So he goes back to his house, goes home, goes to sleep. Next morning, the Blues and Twos roll up to his house. I think, so yeah, bubble gum machines blaring the lights. They come out with full riot gear swat team. They bust down the door, show up like guns in his face and he's not in bed. Nobody he's there. They're like, what I thought they care to be here? Takes them a while. They go digging through boxes and boxes and they go into this one closet fill the box. They take some ten fifteen minutes to pull all the boxes out. They finally pull all the boxes out and there behind like some little crawl spaces a half naked Gerald going, oh, you caught me. So he gets brought in, right, he's arrested. Now remember I said double escape.
Yeah yeah, so listen.
Now he got wrapped. Once he's a rest he's back in custody. So he gets transferred. The arresting detective tells the Omaha Pde uniform Cup be careful. This guy's kind of slick, right, uniform Cup. You gotta see this guy in the documentary. It's really macho.
God.
He's like, tells the story great, and he's like, yeah, they ain't gonna be a problem. This nerdy kidd ache gonna get away from me right there. I'm telling you this is foreshadowing. He can take away from you. Roger Ramjet So cut to him. A few moments later, they're at Central booking the uniform officer he parks. He gets out of his patrol car, leaving Gerald in the back handcuffs on right behind his back. He's canna cuff this, yeah, But before the cop can say John Jacob Jingleheimerschmidt, Gerald has hopped over the seat, drops into the driver's seat of the cop car, locks the cop car doors. Then the cop spins around. When he hears the doors locked, he sees the suspect now in his patrol car with like his gun and his keys. His hands are up in front of his face, now holding onto the steering wheel. He's managed to get them over his head or under his kick exactly, so his hands no longer behind his back. He grabs the steering wheel. The cop goes, oh no, he really His whole career starts splashing before his eyes. What does he do? What does he do? Elizabeth? He goes for his gun and he draws on the boy.
Well, I mean he's because the kid's behind the wheel. He's now behind the wheel of a lethal weapon.
That's true that you're you're much more stute than I'm. I'm just thinking, like, Okay, what are you gonna do? Shoot the cop car? So he's like he's going to do exactly, He's prepared. But then I think the you know, Gerald knew that he wouldn't. So all the screaming is going on in the cop shop full volume. Remember they're in Central Booking parking lot of Central. The cops just popped out for a second. So the guy's yelling like it's like you know in Reservoir Dogs when they had that moment. Look, buddy, I will shoot you in the face. That's what I was picturing. When he's telling the story, he's like all angry, right, So he squared off cop in criminal What does the kid do? What does Gerald do? Put it in reverse, and well he's the cop has backed in, so they're facing each other. He's looking at them, he's looking. He drives right, he punches hid so he floors and he puts the cop up on the hood of his own car, dumps a cop behind him. Tire squeal, smoke fills the arrow. Gerald races off. He drives through the parking lot style gate shatters that he's on the loose, right, So what does he do now? He drives one state away in a.
Cop car in a cop car.
So the original arresting detective was in Iowa, right. So he's out working a traffic accident scene directing traffic. He spots a car in Iowa because this is taking place with Council Bluffs, Iowa and Obaha, Nebraska. So he drives over to Council Bluffs, Iowa, one state away, right, And this is a neighboring jurisdiction essentially, but the neighboring jurisdiction is a different step. So the cop is in Iowa and now he's wondering what an Omaha cop car is doing in Iowa coming up on a traffic scene. But he's like whatever, starts waving the guy through. He's like, I must be doing business. Maybe he's going home to his wife. I don't know what it is. Right then he notices, like, wait a minute, that's not a cop. He sees a shirtless, half naked Gerald Blanch shirtless behind the wheel. I don't know when he took his clothes off, never put a shirt on him. Yes, anyway, he's sitting there, he's a you know, naked from the waist up, and he just kind of like meekly waves at the cop cop has Yes, exactly, you're picturing it. Cop has mom like, am I having a stroke?
Yeah?
What's going on? He like drops his clipboard and everything from the accident scened runs over his cop car and he gives chase right, so then boom and then the finally they managed they chase him for a while, they catch Gerald and boom. Because of all of these charges, he's now going to prison.
Oh, I would say so.
Yeah, So he goes off to prison and that's really becomes a real, real criminal. And after he comes out, I was like, this guy is like, you know, he's moved on from I'm gonna steal from Radio Shack. Now He's like, I'm ready to be James Bond because you made me a hard criminal exactly. So this guy rare one total lollapalooza of a man rather than a pull quotes from like newspaper articles or you know, share more quotes from the Hulu doc.
I have a surprise for you, accent.
Well, I figured we could hear from Gerald himself. What Yeah, I sat down with him for an interview. No producer, Dave, would you hit play? Well? Gerald, thank you for making time to speak with ridiculous crime. I'm super stoked to talk to you. I've checked out the Whola documentary The Jewel Thief. I very much enjoyed it, and I am just super gitty to speak with you today. So thank you for making time.
For us, Thanks for having me on your shoulder.
Now, Gerald, I did my research. I saw your government name, Gerald Daniel Blanchard, street name mcguiver. You're called the James Bond of crime. But I want to ask you which criminal title do you prefer? Master thief, international, criminal mastermind?
Well, when I was younger in Omaha, Nebraska, my street name was mcgiver because I would always be tinkerringing with electronics and doing pranks in high school with friends, like shocking the biggest guy in high school, like a guy named or Meets for an example. So my school was like really tough, and that's why they gave me that street name mcgiver or actually, and they also called me the Wizard when I was in jail. But those were the two names.
Nice and nice. And now what do you prefer in terms of like your criminal appellation? Do you like a criminal mastermind? Do you like master thief? Do you like jewel thief? What do you think making yourself as if you were to be, you know, described in such terms.
Well, if I had to be described, I would probably just say I don't know, maybe just Gerald because the past is the past.
Fair enough. Look at that, Elizabeth, My god, I am.
Like, I am having such a hard time processing this. I can't believe you actually talked to him.
Yes, I gotta have to finally talk to one of my dudes, the Wizard. Yes, the Wizard and I we mashed it up. This is my idea of the mash up, Elizabeth. See, we like the King mash up. So we got the guy, the actual guy. And I said, like, you know, like I wanted asking all these questions, the ones we constantly pose, which is like, you know, what's life like as a professional criminal? Like you know, we're your role models, and I'd like in all honestly, these are the things I read.
How many movies have you watched? Are you writing a book?
Exactly? When do you get a book deal? Do you have a literary agent? So this is I have their number? Exactly what do I have to do a crime? Or can I? Can I fake a crime and then do anyway? So this is like the first time really coming forward and telling his story, not to us but the Hulu doc He comes from this o so but he'd.
Ha, oh that's right, I'd forgotten about the Houlah Yeah.
Sorry. So he had other opportunities in the past to come forward. There are big name people who asked him to tell the story, like names, you know, like Oprah. What he's one of the few people to tell.
Oprah no, And like he said no to Oprah.
Oh yeah, day, I can you play the club?
Thirteen years ago, Oprah actually called my criminal lawyer, Danny Gunn from Winnipeg, Manitoba, requested for me to do an interview, and I turned her down because I wanted my privacy. And I decided to do this documentary with Landon in Hulu because I thought it was the right time to tell my side of the story and what things transpired.
Right. So he says no to Oprah.
Wow, I mean, like does he have like is there a price on his head now that he's denied Oprah something?
I think he kind of had to wait for some things.
Deceimber down Stadman's outside of his house in the bushes, like the silencer.
Nobody says no to Oprah tightening the silence. So, uh, the systeps was our you know, our chance to actually talk to an actual, factual international jewel thief. Yeah. I asked a lot of the things that we wonder about on this show. I didn't go for, like, you know, the normal questions of like a respectable journalist might. I went for the questions we want to know they answer to, Like who did you look up to when you were a baby crimer? I asked him, you know, like when when you were a young perp, who did you want to be? Things like that, Right, So I said, uh, Dave, do you mind this doc from Hulu, The Jewel Thief? It covers your impressive criminal career. And I just was just curious because we spent a lot of time talking about criminals on our show, and we often look at the arc of a career, and I was wondering, when you were first starting out, who did you look up to? Who did you have as your criminal role models?
Actually it was Batman and Robin and I was always fascinated by they were trying to catch the bad guy, and that seemed like it was easier to be a bad guy than a good guy.
Mm hm.
So I remember when I was younger watching the show, and then I remember, like my first heist and that was going to o the neighbor's milk because when my mom left my father, we were actually really poor.
Oh right, Oh my god.
Batman and Robin are his criminal role model. He's like, it's easier to beat the bad guy. Is amazing. He takes all the wrong it is amazing.
Is like the greatest day of my life.
I thought you loved this. A little surprise for you.
It's so good.
And his first heist is stealing milk. You know, he's like my first tie. That's when I was a milk runner, but.
It was for a good cause.
Totally. Oh yeah, you got I gotta say.
Too, Zaren, you would almost think that you were a journalist. These amazing questions.
Well, let's just pretend along, all right, So the questions we always talk about, Right, as I said, I gotta finally ask one of my dudes. And I was like, I love this answer. Isn't like Michael mant heat or Scorse, it's Batman and Robins.
Yeah, exactly.
So I also got to ask him, like I said at one point, quote, we found a lot of criminals who escape into the movies and the shows they watch, and I was like, telling, they start imagining this bigger, better life that's existing up on the screen right or the flickering screen of TV, the silver screen of movie theater, whatever it is. I'm like a lot of them, that's where they and also they get their ideas where the crimes. So I asked Gerald, like, did you ever do that?
And he was like, actually, pro no, I was just more creative on my own ways.
Don't you love this guy?
Okay?
Yeah?
I was like I want to tell him by like we don't faid, but he's like, no, I don't do that. I was like, never mind, moving on.
So much better than that.
So I see he's very much his own guy, a little cocky, which I also like. And I asked him about his strong moral code because you'll notice he has this. It showed his moral code showed off very early from like you know, his first bust at fifteen. He's kind of like that train robbing bandit Billy Minor that way. He's like, he has his real strong code. He won't rob individuals. He only robs companies, corporations, and then like when he like robs from banks and stuff. He'll like call the credit card companies and be like, here's all the credit cards that I took. So if you see these charges, don't oh well, yeah, he's insane. So Gerald told me about how he was like, in my words, that kind of like a mafia don honoring the code of Omerta. When he gets busted, he wouldn't say a word, right, no matter how much the cops tried to scare the kid that was sitting across the table from them for his first big bust. He's out. They're looking at for his crew.
Right, this is amazing.
We know the manager of the store has been involved. And the police officer gave me a pencil and a piece of paper and said, write down on this paper and tell me exactly what happened and you can go home tonight, and if you don't, you're going to jail. That's the first time in my life I had to make the decision. Am I going to be a rat and keeps solid? And I said, Okay, if I rat this guy out, he's going to lose his job, he has a family, he has kids, He's going to go to jail. I'm going to destroy this guy's life. But if I keep my mouth shut, what's going to happen. They're going to send me to youth jail.
This kid's got a pair on him, right, seriously, so he refuses a snitch. He takes his sentence like he's Polly Walnuts and this earns him respect when he gets on the inside.
He's not violent. I mean he did hit that cop, which is like he's probably still in phad.
Pulled a gun on him. I mean, you're kind of escalated to the point of like I think he would have driven away without it.
I just think of his poor knees as someone was really destroyed knees.
I asked Cherld about our theory, but criminals who only steal from fat cats incorporations and why they choose and never use violence or steal from their equals, you know, or the vulnerable if you will. Now he had a great view on this, so I thought you would like a producer, David. He had that clip.
I'll tell you this, I'm very one hundred percent against stealing from individuals so much so that might be because I remember I had a coin collection when I was maybe eight or nine years old, and my sister took the hinges off the back of my safe and stole some of my coins. She stole it, and I was like, how could you steal from your own family member, like your own brother? And she was really young, like maybe six at the time, so I can't blame her because she didn't know better. But I've always been against stealing from people like just so much. I just frowned upon it. You want to steal, go to the store and steal from a big names story. They can absorb the cost, just sortain extent, rather than the family next stories worked really hard their whole lives to have all this stuff saved their money, and then the neighbor goes in there and robs and while they're at work. That's not fair. I do not like that.
This is yeah's amazing.
I thought you'd love that guy. We could hear from his mouth like boom, there's the yeah, I've saved the most impressive crime, at least to me. That He's got a bunch of crimes that a lot of them are impressive, But the one that I want to tell you about is an international gem thief heist. So take a break and I will get all my papers in order, and I'll tell you the rest in a second. Awesome, All right, Elizabeth, we're back. Yes, so I said. The the most impressive crime into my mind is the one I'm about to tell you international gem thief.
This is like an escalation.
Yeah, oh he's This is when he gets its like James Bond level, like criming on. Right. So have you ever heard of the c C Star of Austria. No, I've never heard of this either. Do you know who Empress c C is? I did not know. I had to look all this.
It sounds like my next door neighbor's little daughter, Empress CC. Oh really what she would make you call her?
Like? Oh?
I thought her real name was Like, she's always.
Out there playing outside. Remember sure you are kid.
So warm hearted? So this this Empress c she shares your name. Oh yeah, Elizabeth, not Clyde, Elizabeth Amiie Eugenie, Empress of Austria and Queen to Hungary.
Good for her.
Yeah, this was all by via marriage to Emperor Franz Joseph the first huh. Yeah. She ruled from April twenty first, eighteen fifty four, until she was assassinated by an anarchist in eighteen ninety eight.
That was a that was a common thing at this Yeah, that was.
Yeah, a big cause of death with an anarchism. It was like heart attack, car accident.
Just wait, I'm gonna tell you about it.
That car accident. Little too early for that burnette anyway, but.
She was She was not only the proto anarchist cars.
Diesel, like he's inventing a car running over his neighbors. We had like three anyway, So the longest ruling monarch of the nineteenth century, she was one of them. She was also considered one of the most striking beautiful women of the nineteenth century. She was like she set standards for certain things. I think you'd like her because she was fluent to multiple languages. She wrote poetry. She called herself Titiana, in honor of the fairy queen of Shakespeare. Like that was like her court name. But she was not into court life. She kind of like thumbed her nose at all. She suffered blue period what'll be called depression. She was very much her own woman. She smoke cigarettes, which was unheard of in the mid nineteenth century, like it was big in the nineteen twenty.
So yeah, yeah, that's true.
So even more shocking, she had a tattoo and that just like some normal like oh, I don't know, like a rose. Yeah it rose exactly, I'm shrinking flower. She had an anchor tattoo on her arm. She said it marked her love of the sea and her affinity for sailors eighteen.
Did she like a Polynesian tattoo?
No, she just was aware that people have these, and she's like, I want one, give me one. I want the anchor for He doesn't say, mom, Mom married me.
I love her.
Also, she was a strident animal lover.
Everything is better and better about that, right, I'm.
Telling you she's like your patron saint Franctically. For the holiday Saints Day, she was asked what gifts that you know she would like, and she was like, oh yes in her answer very elizabeth. Yeah. She said that she would like a a baby tiger and be a medallion, and above all, she said that she would like quote a fully equipped lunatic asylum would please me most.
Oh my god, No, I wouldn't want the baby tiger, you know how I am wildly but wanted still gift card.
Okay, fair enough.
I want to now I want a lunatic asylum.
Right, exactly, She was known for a compassionate treatment of suffering from mental illness, so she wanted to be able to give them greater care. Yes, that's what she means, fully equipped. She met with doctors for everybody. Oh yeah, so she was also a lover of fine things. It's in particular Empress CC. She loved gemstones her. That was like her bag basically, so the people, if they wanted to impress it, they're like, oh, hey, beautiful woman, please wear my gemstones. Right, so we get the Star of CCI. In nineteen ninety eight, to mark the one hundred year anniversary, the centenary of Empress Elizabeth's death, the Star of CC was put out on display at the Schombrone Palace of Vienna. Okay, right now. Coincidentally, my man Gerald Blanchard happened to be in Vienna at that time. He was there with his then wife and father in law. They took a tour of the palace. Oh, look at all the fineries, right, and he goes and he spots the jewels.
I've actually seen the palace before. Really, word, I've been there.
You've been in this palace. I have look at you jetson. Well, give me so lokive me, dude, much like you wander around in the palace. He's smit with all the fineries that you could probably better attest to than I. He's delighted by them. Is it really spectacular in there? Okay? So he was just gobsmacked by all this. He decides right then and there, I must steal the Star of CC. Yes, this message. It's one of those like National Treasure moments or like Nicholas Cage. I'm going to steal the decoration.
Dependent of criminals on the show who see something and it just speaks to them. I have to have it.
He had that voice.
Yeah, so it's all that's.
Do that one more.
I don't know if I'll be able to talk.
I want that little voice on my shoulder anyway. The c C Star is also known as the Cocuert Diamond Pearl. It is a ten pointed star. It is bejeweled with diamonds on the stars arms or legs what you call it?
Uh.
They all fan out from the center and not the center is a single enormous pearl right, very striking the museum staff. It took them a year to discover that the CC Star had been stolen wait what Yes, the reason why is the thief had left behind a replica one he was just at the gift shop. No, that's amazing. So Lizabeth, as I told you, we have the rare opportunity to talk shop with a career criminals. So the man alleged to have stolen the Star of CCI is Gerald Blanchard, So I thought we'd ask him all about the jewel heist. Dave, you mind the C C Star of Austria? Why that one? What about that one? Drew your attention? You decided I'm just going to do this, like was it a one off? Was it a new challenge? Was it you were there with you know, the wife and the father in laws. You're like, I just need to have an escape.
Let me say this here in Canada, I played guilty to possession of the CC Star. I didn't plead guilty to the theft because Austria wants to extradite me back for the crime because it's international jewel. So I'm not going to say I stole it. I'm going to say possession of him?
Why you had, how you had? How you came into possession?
But you caread in between the lines and somehow it ended up in my possession.
Was just that.
But I was at museum, and when I took a tour, I saw beautiful pieces. For an example, I saw the crown with diamonds, I saw the cisy star, different medals and different things, and it was just something that I was just so fascinating and I knew it was one of a kind. And I like challenges.
Let's just say, my man, he does it as a lark.
He likes a challenge.
Yeah, he's like, I gotta do that. I mean, like, it's just speaking to me. I got the Elizabeth voice in my ear. It's a challenge I got to meet. I'm like, God, this is better than the Omaha police. I can beat this. So he decides, you know, Also he told me he was a way to keep his mo fresh, you know, like the modus operandi. So he wanted them to not be able to guess what crimes he would do and also expand his possibilities. So because he keeps the cops guessing, and also he kept me guessing, I had to know more Elizabeth. So I was like, you know, Elizabeth, maybe looking for a new retirement plan. Maybe she maybe perhaps bank robbery is right for her, so I asked him for more information for you and for me. But since we had I said, there's this rare opportunity to talk to dude himself here how it is from the inside. I asked Gerald Blanchard for a personal favor because I was like, all giddy and confused. I was like, you know, I'm asking you all the wrong questions. You should just tell me the thing. What's it like on the inside. And he was kind enough to oblige me. He was like, oh, okay, I'll tell you. And I was like, all right, well, let me just turn the mic over to him.
You, Elizabeth, close your eyes and picture it, imagining jumping out of an air plane into the darkness and you see the street lights so far down, and you see the rooftop of the castle, and you're hoping you would land perfectly. And as you land, you hit so hard you could feel you're capable. You felt like it shattered as you're sliding down the edge of the roof, and luckily you're slamming on your body up against the column so you don't fall off the edge of the roof. That there is a thrill in itself, the adrenaline overseats the pain that you feel after you land on the roof. You would take your rope and you would wrap your rope around the column as a big you so as you tie to your body, you could lower yourself down to the roof and then the window that was left open the day before, you push open the window, pull the rope back up. Now you're inside of the museum and you have the museum to yourself. It's easy pickings. All you can hear is your heartbeat. But as long as you stay quiet and your body's under control, and the museum all you see is like the emergency lights are basically glowing and lighting up, and the only thing you can see is like the sparkles of the diamond or in another part of the museum there was the crown with the diamonds, and that was very challenging and interesting to have that feeling that at any moment you could be caught if somebody walks in, because obviously there's armored guards walking around everywhere. When you leave, you leave the exact same way you take the rope, You wrap it around an existing item inside the museum, and you let go of the rope. You lower yourself hold the other rope down, gather up all your items, wrote them in the dumpster, and you run her way into the darkness of night, hopefully never to be seen again.
Boom, did you picture it?
That was the best picture it ever.
Not gonna take that personally, but isn't it? It was so also just a point of note, Dave.
And that's all hypothetical story time.
All hypothetical, alleged and imagine.
Exactly all right, Oh sure, yeah.
I got to put that in there for legal reasons, of course. So we got a guided to her from the man himself allegend allegen. Now, remember how I told you earlier that Gerald broke one of the cardinal rules of ridiculous crime. Yeah, he left a slew of evidence he filmed us up doing crimes. Yeah, I had to know why, so I asked him about that. Oh yeah, why did you break crime rule number one and decide to record so much stuff on camera?
The reason why is because when you record stuff, you can go back and learn what you've done and how you could do things differently and make things better. Like yeah, when I was younger, me shoplifting from stores when I was like fifteen, recording it so what it's shoplifting, Nothing's going to happen. But I should have recorded with a gold pro when I did the ATMs, Like can you imagine me like running to the ATM room, opening up each machine, grabbing the money, and then running out and having to documented. I should have hit it, But I never had the thought that I'm going to get caught because I thought I had it really well planned out.
So I'm agog I thought he might be what he's talking about with the ATMs. It's one of his bank robberies. He went into in a Canadian bank, and while I was being built, he put in all these security and surveillance equipment, and then once it was about to be opened, then he strikes the night before it's gonna be opened, and he empties all the ATM machines that they have filled up with fresh cash. Oh my, And so we talked about the ATM room. He's talking about a brand new ATM and being in the little room on the backside obviously where they load the machines and just tearing open all those drawers and that seeing all that cash and the.
Idea that he wants to be able to like it's like those football films where they watch back.
Over places totally wants to watch films.
I could, I could have gone right on that. Or it's kind of also like an arsonist who goes back and watches and gets his jollies off.
Oh yeah, I thought about that. I like more of the idea that he's like John Madden with the telestrap here. I could have come into the agypt exactly so as I told you he was. He got in the bank robbery. He has a really big job the CIBC bank in Winnipeg, Canada, that one eventually would cost him his freedom right. But to learn about that when you have to watch the doc because I don't want to tell all the stories, but if you do, want to hear about how he's caught, how he pulled off his biggest heightst jobs and all of that, and then his life is a real life, you know, full hero outlaw. Do check The Jewel Thief. It's streaming now. I enjoyed it.
I'll watch it.
Elizabeth. You know how you like to sleep.
God, I love to sleep, right, yeah, yeah, you know, like you.
Know who loves a good night's sleep almost as much as you do. Cats good call a person on the run.
Oh yeah, because it's few and far.
They never get a good night's sleep, right, and it starts to catch up to them and they get all you know, you want to see someone who's grouchy hang out with someone who's on the run. Sure, right, So Gerald discovered the key to a good night's rest. You want to know what it is. What's telling the truth? Apparently, and melowtonin no, no, that's you're seeing. Yeah, So now his recipe is slightly different. His was a night in jail and then telling the truth. So at least that first night in jail was a good night sleep. I don't know about the ones after that, but that first night was like awesome. So he'd been on the run for years at that point, and uh, how was it for Gerald once he finally was busted and his head hit that county issued pillow. Well, we can take it from him, Dave.
The best night was the first night I slept in jail like I was caught. I was relieved, I didn't have to worry about anything else, and it was the best sleep of my life.
And we hear this over and over again, how good it feels to be caught. Were you surprised by that relief.
Actually, I was like, had I known, I probably would have done things a lot differently. I just didn't realize. Like I said to the police, like nine to ten years to catch me.
WHOA right?
Nine to ten years.
Yeah, he's on the run for nine to ten years. There's a whole thing. I mean, that's stressful. Oh my god, it's crazier than that, because as I told you, he was like, you know, very anti violence, doesn't and he also doesn't want to hurt anybody. He eventually gets involved with real criminals and then international criminals, credit card fraud. Then there's allegations he's involved with a terrorist mastermind and that's where the credit card fraud is funding. And this is like post nine to eleven, two thousand and four eras, So it's like real dicey to be involved with like terrorists find out. So he finds like the world of crime swallows him up like the sea and drags him out into the drowning.
Do you think it must be hard to stay nonviolent and stay like not targeting people.
You don't want to do the violence, and if you want to protect what you have and also protect yourself against other criminals you're doing business with, who will take from you what you have if you have to defend yourself or defend yourself with violence. Eventually you realize I'm in a room with all criminals and they will if I don't act tough and it You're like, oh, this is not the best growth plan. Like I'm gonna have to do this more and more. I'm had to get other guys with guns to sit next to me and protect my stuff. If I get more stuff, I'm gonna need more guys with guns. It's just like this is so that's why you get out of crime, if you really get deep into it. Right anyway, lesson over, what's our ridiculous takeaway?
Wow, I don't know. I mean I think that he's a good cautionary tale that like in terms of like we were just talking about getting swallowed up into larger things. So he had like a I don't want to say a noble mission because he was breaking the law totally, but it's same to But it wasn't damaging to the everyday person.
No, exactly, he was His victims were not such that their lives were ruined. He was not you know, causing funerals he was not doing the stuff it's usually the costly aspect and.
Just breaking people because he came from a family that had I mean divorce, but you had to know what it's like to just have nothing.
He'd been the victim of that, so this time he thought so.
But I think it's interesting that he and the idea that your first good night of sleep is the one in jail.
After ten years or almost, you know.
And I also, my other ridiculous takeaway is apparently like cool things like Hulu and all this other stuff contacts.
You open your emails. That's all I got to say.
Yeah, I guess.
Well, my ridiculous takeaway, once again, thank you for asking, Elizabeth, is not only open your emails. But my other one is that I find it really fascinating how he kind of comes around, because now he is a security consultant, you know, so he's like what we often see. He becomes like the white hat happer. He's like, I'll teach you how to not have your sheep you take, and I'm the wolf who will protect you. But he still has like a not a disregard, but a lot of his attitudes haven't changed. He just realized that crime doesn't pay in the way that he wants, but he hasn't changed his mind about like, they're still robbing you too. You have to come around like legally exactly. I like that, you know, he's trying to make his way in a world where he's I has to watch other people get away with crime and he's like, nope, I can't do that.
Yeah.
So I find that really fascinating because he's so smart and he's like and he also his old desire to get back he's right now having to live like where he's muting himself. Yeah, so he's he's like another I'm not saying this is some zent maaster, but I thought that was really interesting.
Well, and I just I'm so appreciative that he sat down to talk to you about that totally.
It was great, So thank you, Gerald, I had a great time. And uh, anytime you want to come back, you know, you're always welcome, friend of the show, and if you enjoyed that, I also wanted to let you know we will make a full interview available on our website, So check back A Ridiculous Crime you want to hear the full interview with Gerald Blanchard Jewel Thief extraordinary. You can find us online if you'd like to hear more Ridiculous Crime on Twitter, Instagram, now threads.
Oh yeah, that's right, and.
You can email us Elizabeth at Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. Somebody will get me the emails and currently she doesn't ever see it anyway. We also have the talkback app on iHeart, so you can uh you know, send us with she does hear those I can attest today, those she likes, those she likes to sun to your guys' voices. So end of an email that you just have a voicemail in it, I don't know, maybe should listen to that anyway. We'll be back next to Ryan. Thanks for listening. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by Jewel thief connoisseur Dave researches by Marissa Interval's Most Wanted Brown and Andrea cat Burglar to the Stars song Shopping Too. Our theme song is a by Thomas Majestic Lee and Travis Benjamin Dutton. Post wardrobe is provided by Botany Five. Executive producers are Ben.
The Other, mcgui Ver Bowlin and Noel mad Dog Murdoch Brown, Cry.
Say It One More Time. Crime.
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeart Radio four more podcasts My heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
